Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

I have a problem performing the shiho nage technic ! In the aikido class , i can do it well because uke are accepting the move but when i do it to someone else in the street (just kidding with my friends) they can escape from it when i turn to block their arm ! Please help me! What should i do to make my shiho nage better and can't escape from it! I'm just a white belt beginner so i don't know much about it , but please help me guys! Thanks

You are learning in the dojo basic "words and grammar" of the language but you cannot make sentences and paragraphs yet....so in the dojo we cooperate with our partners, because the only way you CAN learn those words and how to put them together is by being allowed to do so over and over, first just sort of, getting your hands and feet in the right place, etc....it will be a while before you will be able to move somebody who is not actively working WITH you.

Janet and Conrad are right. I was were you are, with the exact same technique, so please believe me when I say I understand.

But don't dispair! This is your opportunity to listen to others and learn something else. You see, both Janet and Conrad have hit upon the two reasons I've found I personally can't always do a technique against someone who doesn't practice Aikido (against someone who does is a different situation, most of the time). 1) lack of understanding of the principles of aikido and how they apply to a particular technique. This is what Janet is saying. Just be patient and practice, practice, practice. Eventually you'll get to the point where you understand WHY you're supposed to move a certain way.

But Conrad's 1st bit of advice is particularly interesting to me. Trying any martial art technique against an uncooperative person in a non-life threatening situation is a tricky thing. In this particular case, I'm certain your friends are putting themselves into a disadvantageous position when they resist. Now, since you're focused on doing shihonage as you understand it and we've already established that neither of us actually understand it well enough, it fails. But whatever they're doing to get out can lead to another technique or an atemi. Or, if things go hdeously wrong, injury or death. It's happened before, with shihonage even! There's a great risk of someone hitting their head, even when you DO know what you're doing. It's not like your friends know how to protect themselves when you try to do shihonage. So keep practicing and learn how to protect other people, especially the one you're doing some technique to.

It will take years, if not decades, but it will be worth it.

Sorry for rambling, I'm stuck at work overnight with little to do and too much caffeine in my system!

A previous instructor at my dojo had his arm severely damaged from a white belt learning shihonage. He need major surgery and couldn't practice for about 2 years until the arm healed along with therapy. Follow the advice of not playing around with this with people outside the dojo.

There is a gap behind your head that you are leaving wide open for them to roll out of. If you close this gap off, they can't roll out of it anymore. However if they are consistently rolling out, and you can't make the technique good enough to stop them, you can simply plan a good follow up technique. Depending on what they are doing yonkyo or sumi otoshi might work very well in this situation as a follow up technique.

Here is a video I made about 7 years ago, talking about the "late roll out". Which is basically the situation you are describing. This situation is far more complex than the amount of detail I talk about here, but it should give you a good starting point to work with this problem. http://www.aikidostudent.com/oldasc/content/?p=697

I understand the excitement and frustration aikido can bring to a person and specially a new student. Before coming to the internet for help, the best advice I can give you is to ask your sensei for help. Only your sensei can correct your form as we have no idea what exactly your doing wrong. I know that my sensei would be upset if I was having problems with a technique and not asking questions in class. Then went looking for answers on the internet. If your sensei is unwilling to help you or can't help you then move to another dojo. Learn all your kihon techniques properly try to perform them as perfect as possible and this way you will always have a good solid base to go back to. When something does go wrong you can ask yourself what did I do differently that allowed my technique to fail. Eventually with enough practice and enough time your shihonage will become solid. The key to any training is learning the fundamentals and always practicing the fundamentals.

Just to reinforce the safety issue:
Part of the fun of learning techniques is playing around with them, but I agree with the idea that shihonage in particular can be a bit dangerous if either or both of the people practicing it aren't familiar with it. Compared to some other techniques, it can be easy to smash the back of the head, which is potentially lethal, never mind the more likely risks of lesser head trauma or damage to the elbow and shoulder if either of you should lose your balance (or your uke panic at the sudden loss of control combined with feeling of his/her head falling backward) at the wrong time. Part of what can cause injury is uke tightening up and resisting the technique in the wrong way.
I'm guessing it's the issue Chris demonstrated, because that's a commonly described problem, but diagnosing (and fixing) the problem(s) should be done in person...especially for techniques like this one, in my low-level opinion. I'm all for talking about techniques and practice tips, even though I think those things are done best on the mat, but not knowing either of your skill levels I hesitate to offer what little advice I could give on the technique itself.

I have a problem performing the shiho nage technic ! In the aikido class , i can do it well because uke are accepting the move but when i do it to someone else in the street (just kidding with my friends) they can escape from it when i turn to block their arm ! Please help me! What should i do to make my shiho nage better and can't escape from it! I'm just a white belt beginner so i don't know much about it , but please help me guys! Thanks

Friends in the street have no duty to cooperate in an Aikido style, nor the muscle-memory to unconciously move the way you'd like them to, especially against a rubbish ShihoNage.

Don't worry about it, it's not supposed to be an effective technique from the perspective of an unranked beginner against friends in the street.

It seems to me a joint-wrecking technique gentlified into a throw for Aikido purposes.
You don't want to wreck your street-friends' elbows and shoulders so leave it at that.
On un-Aikido-ised partners there is no way to achieve a safe conclusion with ShihoNage unless everything's in slomo and they want to cooperate.

From a white belts standpoint, I understand wanting to show friends, but until you are better, the other posts are correct . . . it can lead to a problem. When done correctly from a grab, we always uke grab hold, you should never grab him back! If you don't grab, he can not escape!

A pressure touch is all it should take, the rest is your body movement. Done correctly, he will not even feel it until it is too late. You should not have to follow through, since you will have his balance! If he is feeling what you are doing, practice more. Do the movements without a partner when not in class, and use class and your sensei's advice to make sure your movements are correct, and your footwork is proper!

This is why they say the most "knowledgeable" aikidoka is a 5th kyu Hell when I was there I wanted to show everyone how cool aikido was. And every time I just frustrated myself.

If you havent noticed, the philosophy of aikido practice assumes that both persons know what they are doing to fulfill their role of tori and uke. Otherwise all the breakfall and ukemi make no sense at all, because no untrained person would do that "I m gonna take this extremely scary highfall because I dont want to lose my limb"

So for a trained partner shihonage would work because he knows that if he resists some realll bad things can happen. Either you switch to ude kimenage which is a brutal arm lock/break, or you extend your arms, crank his elbow up using your core movement and turn around with an immediate cut (this is how we "force" a shihonage in my dojo) The only way to get out of this with all limbs intact is a breakfall. Besides there s always place for a fatal atemi, i.e you can break his kneecap from behind with your inside leg when you start turning his body. This is why we rarely see a real atemi in aikido I think. They are supplementary but they are meant to be disabling given the precise positioning of aikido techniques.

All the above are good reasons to not do aikido on an untrained person. Because they will resist and you will be forced to go brutal on them if you want to protect yourself.

Saito Sensei often told people that especially shihonage is not a good technique to use when you want to show someone what aikido is about. He said that people will turn out of it, and to stop this from happening you need to do the technique dynamically, and untrained people are not ready for this kind of training. In general, as many of the others have also said, playing around with aikido is very difficult to do, and risky, both for you (when you are trying to be careful not to hurt your untrained uke) and for your partner. It takes a lot of control to lead an untrained person through an aikido technique firmly yet gently. This will come with time.

I have some experience with this and apologies for being late to the gun.

Several things that I found that you need to do to make shihonage effective.

Against a static opponent when his balance is not broken it's almost impossible to do shihonage without atemi. However just by stepping back and extending the hand forward and bringing him out of his balance can help you create the entry. You need to break his balance first BEFORE attempting the entry. You can do this slowly provided he's not giving you full resistance.

There's a torque on the wrist that you can also do while entering and lifting his body up that gives you the ability to enter safely.

Now from your post I can gather that your friends have let you entered but it's more of you being unable to complete the turn without them resisting. This is probably due to something you're missing in the technique. If you're not doing shihonage dynamically, you can still apply a mini arm-bar type ish to lock him in before you turn. This locks him in position and gives you time to properly adjust your body to take away the space between the both of you. (I wouldn't recommend this in actual technique but I usually apply it a little bit even when doing it quick just to give that added effect). This also prevents him from spinning out of shihonage if you're keeping the technique tight.

The turn has to be relatively quick but make sure you're turning at the hips and keeping your hands always in front of your head. Drop your body without compromising your stance. If you do that, once you turn, uke will be off balance without you having to even cut down.

You can also play around with Stanley Pranin's suggestion on a different shihonage grip that gives you more control (especially in non dynamic attacks).

Here is also a quick video of me doing shihonage with the revised grip. If you can slow it down you can see how I turn. It's not perfect since I was more focusing on the grip but you can get the idea. It's not as tight as I would normally do it due to the revised grip I'm using which already automatically locks his arm out. However these things of course need to be felt :Phttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...13838030948691